Léo Delibes
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Maestro Clément Philibert Léo Delibes, Paris, circa 1885 |
(Clément Philibert) Léo Delibes (
February 21,
1836 –
January 16,
1891) was a
French composer of
Romantic music. He was born in
Saint-Germain-du-Val, France.
Delibes was born in
1836, the son of a
mailman and a musical mother, but also the grandson of an
opera singer. He was raised mainly by his mother and uncle following his father's early death. In
1871, at the age of 35, the composer married Léontine Estelle Denain. Delibes died 20 years later in
1891, and was buried in the
Cimetière de Montmartre,
Paris.
Starting in
1847, Delibes studied
composition at the
Paris Conservatoire as a student of
Adolphe Adam. A year later, he also began taking
voice lessons, though he would end up a much better
organ player than singer. He held positions as a rehearsal
accompanist and
chorus master at the
Théâtre-Lyrique, second chorus master at the
Paris Opéra, (
1864), and as organist at
Saint-Pierre-de-Chaillot between
1865 and
1871. His first of many operettas was
Deux sous le charbon, written in
1856 for the Folies-Nouvelles. Delibes achieved true fame in
1870 with the success of his
ballet Coppélia; its title referred to a doll, depicted in the work, which comes to life. Other ballets include
Sylvia (
1876), and
La Source (1866), his first, which he wrote with
Léon Minkus.
Delibes also composed various
operas, the last of which, the lush orientalizing
Lakmé (1883), contains, among many dazzling numbers, the famous coloratura showpiece known as the
Légende du Paria or
Bell Song ("Où va la jeune Indoue?") and the
Flower Duet, a
barcarolle that
British Airways commercials made familiar to non-opera-goers in the 1990s. At the time, his operas impressed
Tchaikovsky enough for the composer to rate Delibes more highly than
Brahms—which seems faint praise when you consider that the Russian composer considered Brahms "a giftless bastard."
In 1867 Delibes composed the
Divertissement Le Jardin Animé for a revival of the
Joseph Mazilier/
Adolphe Adam ballet
Le Corsaire; wrote a Mass, a cantata on the theme of
Algiers; and composed operettas and occasional music for the theater, such as dances and antique airs for
Victor Hugo's
Le roi s'amuse, the play that
Verdi turned into
Rigoletto. Some musicologists believe that the ballet in
Gounod's
Faust was actually composed by Delibes.
Delibes' work is known to have been a great influence on composers such as
Tchaikovsky and
Saint-Saëns and
Debussy(4). His ballet
Sylvia was of special interest to Tchaikovsky.
 | Excerpt from Delibes' score: The first few measures of Pizzicato from Sylvia |
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* BalletNotes (2001).
"Léo Delibes". Retrieved June 25, 2005.
* Mullany, Janet (2005).
Léo Delibes. Retrieved June 25, 2005.
* All Music Guide (2001).
Leo Delibes Retrieved July 1, 2005.
*
Easybyte - free easy piano music for Flower Duet from Lakme
